Anna Katharina Schaffner on the cultural history of fat and fat phobia; the TLS's travel editor Catharine Morris on why Paris will always be disappointing, the solitude of open spaces, and the problem with "Victor" the archetypal travel writer; an extract from the 2019 Man Booker International prize-winning Celestial Bodies by Jokha al-Harthi, read by the novel's translator Marilyn Booth
Books
Fat: A cultural history of the stuff of life by Christopher E. Forth
The Truth About Fat by Anthony Warner
Fearing the Black Body: The racial origins of fat phobia by Sabrina Strings
We’ll Never Have Paris, edited by Andrew Gallix
The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich
Heida: A shepherd at the edge of the world by Steinunn Sigurðardóttir and Heiða Ásgeirsdóttír, translated by Philip Roughton
Where the Hornbeam Grows: A journey in search of a garden by Beth Lynch
The Cambridge History of Travel Writing, edited by Nandini Das and Tim Youngs
Celestial Bodies by Jokha al-Harthi, translated by Marilyn Booth
Introducing: Stories of our times
‘A very peculiar telegram’
The kangaroo curve
Tweets, memes and the smell of masculine
Tales of a century
Passion projects
Absolutely worth the hype
The Mirror & the Light – an extract from Hilary Mantel's new novel
West Side Storyless
Vanilla sex in Pompeii
Can't go on. Go on.
Anne Enright – a reading from Actress
Daniel Kehlmann, an interview
Bringing Tolstoy down
Carrier bag or stick?
Byron's oddness
Huge stars in a minor key
Bonus episode: Five women, one radical address
Seen and not heard?
Apples and oranges in space
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Voices of Misery Podcast
House of Whimsical Terror
Dairyland Frights
Stuff You Should Know
Timcast IRL